After doing a quick search of the strategy forum and not finding a thread on this topic, I would like to start a thread on interesting tactics used in this game. I would like this tread to include not only specific tactics, but if possible known successful counters to those tactics. In addition you can feel free to include defensive, as well as offensive tactics. The objective of this thread is to share ideas, and perhaps create a list of tactics to suggest to new players to attempt. Part of the idea here is while the manual does a decent job explaining the nuts and bolts of the game, it doesn't really include any examples of suggested strategies to help new players make good attack decisions. So if some of the strategies suggested seem obvious to experianced players please don't flame. Please feel free to add to this list, and to discuss the various merits of the suggestions made. A copy of these suggestions can also be found on the PA Wiki .

Tactical level description:
[basic] These are the recommended tactics for new players, they give you the basics on how to play the game and give you a decent chance of success.[intermediate]These tactics are recommended for once you've been playing for a bit and have a good feel for the game. These tactics are ussually feast or famine tactics, either they work great with large rewards, or they fail miserably.[advanced] These tactics require careful timing and planning. Unless they are done just right they never succeed, but with careful planning the rewards can be great.

Several tactics that stick out to me:

Tactic: Send, recall, resend [basic]Description: Launch an attack, jumpgate the attack near the end of the first tick to see if there is defense, if there is defence recall right at the end of the tick and resend the following tick. The advantage of this often used tactic is it soaks up out of galaxy defense, and gives you a second opportunity to attack.Counter: The best counter to this strategy is active defense, rather then passive defense. Having defenders on at the end of the first tick to recall can be very useful. Another good counter strategy is to organize an attack on your would be attacker that will require him to keep his attack fleet home to defend. Then use the same tactic back at him, ie jpg at the end of the first tick and recall if he got defense.

Tactic: Fleet Exchange [advanced]Description: Have two attack fleets of different ship classes, with different eta's, and the same size. Launching the higher eta fleet with fleet name "alpha." Right at the end of the first tick recall the high eta fleet and send the lower eta fleet. Rename the lower eta fleet to Alpha. If you are lucky (and I've seen it work) they will assume it's the same fleet and not rescan the attacker. Then all defense that is sent will be worthlessCounter: Make sure you do an FA scan after the first tick to verify the fleet composition. Also make sure you have at least some defense against the attackers other possible fleet.

Tactic: Single class attack [basic]Description: Send only one class of ships on any given attack, thereby limiting which of your targets ships can target your fleet.Counter: No specific counter, just find the right defense.

Tactic: Fake Defense [basic]Description: When a friend has incomming and you have the correct type of ships, but those ships are not home send a different type of ship instead in the exact quantity you have of the ship that would be effective. If the attacker does a jump gate he will not know that the defense is fake and will have to assume it is real and will therefor recall.Counter: No known counter, other then landing anyway and seeing what shows up. If the defense is from outside the target gal you CAN do a news scan at eta 1 and see what the initial eta of the defense was, if the defense eta is different then what it should have been (ie 7 because the fake def is FI rather then 8 because the real def would have been FR) then you know the def is fake. In my personal experiance however this rarely is useful.

Sum up of tactics suggested below:

Tactic: Disguised Fleet Attack (aka Fake Attack) [intermediate]Description: Similar to Fake Defense, send a fleet of one class disguised as a fleet of another class. For example, sending a bunch of FR that have the same number of ships as your DE's, then later send your DE's faked as BS (for terrans). Defender will think the first wave is DEs and send anti DE, defender will think second wave is BS and send anti BS, therefore your DE will get through unharmed.Counter: Fleet scans can tell the difference, as long as you don't get blocked. Otherwise calc your home fleet against the attackers potential attack fleets. Using the above example, if you have pretty good BS defense, but terrible DE defense, simply assume both incomming fleets are DE and defend accordingly. Otherwise massive overkill on def ussually works, but is rarely a good option.

Tactic: Mutli Race Attack [intermediate]Description: This tactic involves finding a friend of another race to attack with. Because races have different advantages and weaknesses, combining two races together can sometimes be a very powerful attack fleet which is nearly impossible to defend against. One classic example would be cath and zik CR/BS combo attack. Essentially the caths freeze the attackers, and the zik's clean up. Another great example is the 1-2 punch of zik and terran BS attacks, they target most classes and are hard to stop. Essentially any two races can combine at some level, but which combos are best depends on the current ship stats.Counter: If the attack is done right there is no good counter, other then overwhelming defense. If you are lucky you can find a ship that the attackers don't target, and that does target the attackers, but if the attackers are smart, this isn't really an option.

Tactic: Defense Specialization (aka Fleet Swaping) [intermediate]Description: If you have alot of anti CR, and your mate(s) have alot of anti BA, and you have BA incs and they have CR incs, you send your fleet to defend a mate, they send their fleet(s) to defend you. It is especially effective if also combined with fake defence, ie you fake another anti CR fleet to another of your gal mates, thus potentially covering two incs with only half the ships .Counter: The obvious counter if you think your target is likely to swap in-gal def or has a previous tendency to do so, is to send both a CR fleet and a BA fleet at him - that way if he defends his gal mate he leaves himself wide open.

Tactic: Fleet Catch [advanced]Description: This tactic has to be carefully planned and executed to be successful, ussually with multiple attackers, sometimes with as many as 20 or 30 attackers. The idea is to find a target who is about to land his fleet on a target, and time your attack so that your attack will land the same tick that his fleet will return home. The conceot here is to make it so he is unable to run away from your overwhelming attack, not to steal roids, roids are a bonus. There are two strategies with Fleet catches, either to steal as much of the targets fleet as possible, or kill as much of the targets fleet as possible. In order to kill as much as possible the tactic is simple, just send a lot of ships! A good fleet catch however will endevor to steal, rather then kill. To accomplish this ussually a gigantic attack fleet is sent, and once the attack is certain to succeed (ie no defenders left) most of the attack fleet recalls and allows the ziks and maybe some caths to land to maximize the ships that can be stolen.Counter: Suprisingly there are two counters to this tactic. One is rather obvious, simply find a ton of defense! The other counter is a little less obvious. If you suspect someone is trying to fleet catch you, shortly before you land on your target have a jumpgate taken of your planet. If you see a bunch of fleets on prelaunch timed to catch your returning fleet simply recall your fleet before you land and mess up their timing. You won't get any roids, but you will keep your ships. Most fleet catches will recall as soon as they see they have missed your fleet, and ussually you'll even get to keep your own roids.Note: The jpg scan counter may not work every time as some rounds zik steal ships have a lower eta then the ships they target.

Tactic: Selective Prelaunch Defense [advanced]Description: This tactic is used mainly when you have multiple waves of incomming. If you have ships at home and are being attacked and cannot find enough defense you need to run your fleet to keep it from being destroyed (saving ships is more important then saving roids generally). However when multiple waves are attacking you it is sometimes benificial to have some ships home for one wave of attackers, but not another. One way to do this is to place your fleet in prelaunch. When an attacker lands fleets in prelaunch are not included in the battle and so are spared from getting hammered. Then if you need some of this fleet for the second wave of attackers you can recall the prelaunched fleet instantly and reconfigure to have the correct ships home to defend, placing the ships that would be killed back into prelaunch.Counter: There is no known ingame counter for this tactic. If you can find the general times your intended target is online you could in theory time your attack for when he's asleep, but you'd really have to get lucky.

Tactic: Liquid Assets (Defense) [intermediate]Description: This tactic is fairly straight forward. As your planet grows your fleet can become unbalanced in terms of it's ability to kill various classes of ships. You may choose to focus on an attack fleet and in so doing leave yourself vulnerable to attacks from classes of ships your attack fleet doesn't target. With the liquid assets the concept is to save up a reserve of funds to be used if you are attacked. That way you can buy the exact defense you need and have it show up the same tick the attacker lands suprising him with unexpected defense.Counter: Planet scan all your targets before launching and again before landing, if he has a lot of resources when you launch, and few when you land, odds are he built a bunch of ships.Notes: This tactic is most effective for zik's who can have an extremely unbalanced fleet late in the game due to stealing. In addition make sure you have production as an engineering priority so that you can build ships fast enough to have them available in time (production time of 7 or less). Lastly this defense has the downside of if you build the ships expecting him to run because it will be messy for both sides don't count on it, he may not use the counter and so land anyway.

The Fleet Dodge:[intermediate]Description: This tactic is similer to the fleet catch but instead of aiming to land the same tick their fleet gets back you aim to land the tick before. So the idea here is to make it impossible for the guy attacking you to recall his attack fleet to defend against you. What you do is time your attack to launch either right as your attacker is landing on you or the tick before so that he can't recall his fleet to defend against you, hopefully making it hard for him to find defense against your attack fleet because his own fleet won't be home.Counter: As in a fleet catch, get a jumpgate scan of yourself right before you land to see if you have incomming. Only other real counter is to find the right defense.

Tactic: Fleet Catch Attack [advanced]Description: This is about the most advanced tactic in the game for ziks, and takes careful planning and a ton of luck to get it to work. Basically the setup is you attack a target with two fleets (either two of your own or with a buddy). Your attack fleet is designed to draw a certain type of defense so that you can fleet catch that defense, you recall right before it lands and you allow your buddy (who's fleet is just one FI sent as defense) to land. You simply launch a fleet catch at the defender and steal the helpless defensive fleet if when your buddy lands he finds the right kind of defense.Counter: Sending fake defense works, as does being online right before the attacker lands (this tactic is easy to spot because of the two fleets incomming when one of them is just one ship).

Tactic: Disguised Fleet Defense [advanced]Description: When attacked and you suspect that the attack is a Disguised Fleet Attack (see above) you can use the same tactic against the attacker. By disguising your defense fleet which targets what you think his disguised fleet is as the type of defensive ships the attacker hopes you sent the attacker will land and hopefully get slaughtered. Of course if the attacker didn't send a disguised fleet, then your tactic didn't work and things can get really messy.Counter: No real counter against in gal defense, possible to do a news scan if the defender is out of galaxy and see if the fleet eta makes sense (see above).

Tactic: Covert Op Fleet Scan [advanced]Description: When considering landing an attack on defense and you suspect the defense might be fake you can perform a Sabotage mission against your target shortly before you land. If you destroy the class of ship that would defend against your incomming fleet then the odds are the defense is real and you should recall. If you don't destroy that ship class, then there is a chance (though not necessarily high) that the defense is fake.Counter: Having a high security level helps. Also keeping a few of the right ship class home could prove an effective counter.

I am only to familar with send recall and send... Once a well known BG did that for 9 ticks solid to me. I am a terran and the BG was mainly caths sending co fleets (eta 7 when it goes red)
but it got to the stage when you can get ally m8 to send lancers (eta 8) and caths sending scorpions (eta 9) so when the new wave(s) came in it was ready for it.

the fleet exchange is a great tactic but for it to be really effective the target needs to be offline or the attacker is a distorter whore.

A similar tactic to the fleet swap that was a favourite and similar of mines was sending a fake attack first to soak up the def from the ally and then send the real attack fleet... if done on several or more targets it can really do in an ally. Yet again you either need the target to be offline or have more distorters than the target has amps/ haven't researched FAs.
And as an added bonus you could get gal/ally m8s to attack the defenders on the real wave with the appropiate fleet.

For example a defender has sent chims to def against your attack. You would get a buddy to send a bs fleet at him.

first wave fake DE/ with few k harpys and 1 DE ship
second wave fake BS/with DE count of BS +1 bs so it looks like BS fleet and as we was pretty bigie that was unstopable one guy was so pissed (1up) he organised whole chase on us just cos of that single attack we dryed like 16 def fleets for first wave ((as there was about 9k DE(harpys)) and 2nd pretty much same he got like 20 DEF fleets or so ((there was about 7k BS(all DE))so we recalled harpys on eta1 and landed with 2nd wave lost zero ships got ~1900 roids, there was only few targs we didin't land on as they had pulsars/ghosts for both wave and that was shitloads

one guy was so pissed (1up) he organised whole chase on us just cos of that single attack

It can't be much of a good tactic if it got you killed, can it?

__________________
“They were totally confused,” said the birdman, whose flying suit gives him a passing resemblance to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. “The authorities said that I was an unregistered aircraft and to fly, you need a licence. I told them, ‘No. To fly, you need wings’.”

In theory it is a really good tactic there yada-yada. If done on good few targets on an ally that get "priority" def. It can really do them in.
just need to make sure that the target can't fleet scan you tho.

You didn't kill me - and the only reason why Yada got it was cos rl got in the way - don't think for a second it was 1up skill that did it

A nice tactic I used earlier in the round was - to send fake destoyer fleet with mainly gryphons (to kill the pheonix) followed by fake BS fleet - which roided nicely against the number two planet

As I type he's attacking me now - for the umpteenth time

I don't think he likes me

I've been faking my destroyer fleet against 1up so much - i decided to send a straight BS fleet at someone yesterday - he got destroyer defence
Oh how I laughed

I think you and yada have probably been the only hostile planets who have played remotely well against 1up this round. Compared to you guys, everyone else has been utterly shit. I respect your playing skills.

The only thing that annoyed me was that, after I spotted you on prelaunch and mailed you, you said that you would attack elsewhere... then attacked me anyway. In my mid-round sleep-deprived state, I took offence at this and made sure you were added to the target list - something that should have happened already, as you were clearly hostile.

Yada gets somewhat less respect for whining at me on IRC and in in-game mails, and suiciding his fleet on me. You, however, retain full respect for playing an excellent round.

I do understand how difficult it is to play against a winning alliance; it's what I did in r13. In fact, I used very similar tactics to yours - building lots of distorters and making clever use of fake attacks. The key to making this tactic work is to keep your fleet alive - that's where yada failed (and where you succeeded).

__________________
“They were totally confused,” said the birdman, whose flying suit gives him a passing resemblance to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. “The authorities said that I was an unregistered aircraft and to fly, you need a licence. I told them, ‘No. To fly, you need wings’.”

It's been a difficult round (my first ever full round - i did play a bit betwen rounds 4 to 7)
But i have enjoyed it tremendously - I couldn't stand by like everyone else and leave 1up to win the round unchallenged - I had to have a go
It's a pity more didn't try

At first I didn't try to target 1up - I knew nothing about politics so I just attacked big players - I started following in yada's attacks as he was in an anti 1up alliance - So as I started to recieve hostiles - I started to counter - and now all I seem to do is attack 1up

I am the robin hood of PA

I would say playing PA this season has been a great experience and I have learned alot from gal mates, from my alliance and probably mostly from 1up attacks - u guys sure know how to put an attack together - some of the attack fleets u have used on me have blown my mind

Mate, this is Strategy, a bright colourful place for happy people. It seems you and the other chap have issues to resolve. I would suggest you do so through another medium other than this forum. Thankyou -UN.

Last edited by Ultimate Newbie; 20 Oct 2005 at 04:03.
Reason: Not appropriate for this forum.

Anyway
This thread is supposed to be about tactics - maybe we should start another thread somewhere slagging each other

Tactics
Some game winning tactics used against me by 1up

The other day right in the middle of the day I was attacked by two planets
Now granted these were two of the top planets but this tactic could work on a lower level too
I was attacked by one fleet consisting of 2000 guardians and another fleet consisting of 1500 dragon, 4000 wyvern, and about 300 levs
A perfect example of a fleet that is almost impossible to defend against
My 3000 chims would just be taken - ghosts would be frozen - only BW's would do anything here and even then I would need about a million of them

What I found most interesting about some of the 1up attacks I faced was when they teamed up they pretty much covered all the angles - Cath covette with Xans fi again were almost impossible to stop. I would need my whole alliance online to cover
Vipers made my gryphons usless
Tzens and cutters and thiefs - were useless against 500k of vsh
and my 2500 pegs were made redunant by 400k pulsars
20 to 30k beetles froze most fi - and 200k spiders stopped any sent/ arrow def
The only weakness in their plan which i managed to take advantage of yesterday was that they attacked with 1.4 mil ships but only 20,000 beetles (and no sents) So alls I needed was fi flak to allow my harpies to shoot

Tbh that attack was nice would have been way worse if me and elviz had sent full bs/cr instead of only our bs tho :P
But indeed... the key is trying to cover all the parts... and if you can get that done it's really hard to def

__________________
Titans forever and ever.
<Forest> i fuc*ing hate password sharers, i will log into macs bros account and get scans every 2 mins
<Tempestuous> cypher just happens to be the world's cutest creature

Anyway
What I found most interesting about some of the 1up attacks I faced was when they teamed up they pretty much covered all the angles - Cath covette with Xans fi again were almost impossible to stop. I would need my whole alliance online to cover
Vipers made my gryphons usless
Tzens and cutters and thiefs - were useless against 500k of vsh
and my 2500 pegs were made redunant by 400k pulsars
20 to 30k beetles froze most fi - and 200k spiders stopped any sent/ arrow def
The only weakness in their plan which i managed to take advantage of yesterday was that they attacked with 1.4 mil ships but only 20,000 beetles (and no sents) So alls I needed was fi flak to allow my harpies to shoot

That would be my fault. It was fun anyway, Rob and myself didn't attack you much to be honest, (or anyone for that matter towards the end of the round) but it was interesting the battles we had.

If you'd timed it well you and yada_yada could've landed BS on me (the Xan mentioned above) for ~2.5k roids. Though a Xan with 90 Distorters isn't the best looking target it probably was the best on offer.

I've found "Fleet Swapping" in-gal highly effective. If you have alot of anti CR, and your mate(s) have alot of anti BA, and you have BA incs and they have CR incs, you send your fleet to defend a mate, they send their fleet(s) to defend you. It is especially effective if also combined with fake defence, ie you fake another anti CR fleet to another of your gal mates, thus potentially covering two incs with only half the ships .
The obvious counter if you think your target is likely to swap in-gal def or has a previous tendency to do so, is to send both a CR fleet and a BA fleet at him - that way if he defends his gal mate he leaves himself wide open.

Ummm can't bebothered to read all this so this might already have been posted

tactic: The Fleet Catch
this tactic is a very good one for zik players although not very nice to be on the reciving end of. this tactic involves finding out when a potential targets fleet will be returning to base and the attacking them so you fleet arrives the same tick. It is possable to find out the return tick by using gal status or jgps combined with tech scans or by useing a news scan.
counter:
one get enough defence normally u will get higher priority on defence if you are being fleet capped. Apart from that u can get someone to do a jgp on your own planet just before you land an attack to see if anyone has sent a fleet to attack you and so if u have to u can recall and avoid a fleet catch or give your alliance a little bit more notice.

this tactic involves finding out when a potential targets fleet will be returning to base and the attacking them so you fleet arrives the same tick.

Just to clarify a bit:

The importance of landing on the same tick is that it forces your opponent into battle, as he is unable to 'flee' (send away) his ships. So, by forcing him into battle, you are able to send an overwhelming fleet designed to steal as much of the enemy as possible thereby gaining a large amount of physiological and technological distinctiveness to add to you own .

It should also be noted that this type of attack is not focused on captuing asteroids, it is merely forcing fleets to engage in battle so you can steal ships instead. Roids are typically a bonus in this situation.

Also note, that often it will require a vast proportion of your fleet in order to pull this off properly (as mentioned, instances of fleetcatching tend to receive alot of defence, which forces you to 'overkill' and thus require more of your own ships). Obviously, this leaves your own planet vulnerable to counter attack, and you may find youself being roided by multiple waves right back - in essense, you may consider a fleetcatch as a trade of roids for ships (as you may forgo some roid capping in order to steal ships, and you may loose roids at home in order to steal ships abroad), though obviously this isnt always the case.

Actually, you dont get max cap. The 25% cap is shared between all attackers based on the proportion of their fleet value. Ie, if Attacker 1 had a fleet that was twice the size of Attacker 2, Attacker 1 would get 2/3 of the Cap and Attacker 2 would get 1/3.

However, if either attacker has insufficient pods to actually capture their allocated proportion, that cap is 'lost' and the defender gets to keep it.

Actually, you dont get max cap. The 25% cap is shared between all attackers based on the proportion of their fleet value. Ie, if Attacker 1 had a fleet that was twice the size of Attacker 2, Attacker 1 would get 2/3 of the Cap and Attacker 2 would get 1/3.

However, if either attacker has insufficient pods to actually capture their allocated proportion, that cap is 'lost' and the defender gets to keep it.

So they would have to recall at least...

This isn't quite correct.

Theoretically they're not supposed to get roids if they don't bring pods, but if they bring even one pod that goes unblocked, they do get more than that one pod could cap. I don't recall if this covers the full share or not.

Tactic: Prelaunch Defense [intermediate tactic]Description: This tactic is used mainly when you have multiple waves of incomming. If you have ships at home and are being attacked and cannot find enough defense you need to run your fleet to keep it from being destroyed (saving ships is more important then saving roids generally). However when multiple waves are attacking you it is sometimes benificial to have some ships home for one wave of attackers, but not another. One way to do this is to place your fleet in prelaunch. When an attacker lands fleets in prelaunch are not included in the battle and so are spared from getting hammered. Then if you need some of this fleet for the second wave of attackers you can recall the prelaunched fleet instantly and reconfigure to have the correct ships home to defend, placing the ships that would be killed back into prelaunch.Counter: There is no known counter for this tactic.

Anyone got a better name for this tactic? I was lacking in inspiration.

Anyone got a better name for this tactic? I was lacking in inspiration.

Selective Prelaunched defence perhaps?

Also, the obvious counter to that is to time your attack such that you enemy isnt online when your attack lands, as opposed to when it launches, as the player has to be online in order to shuffle their fleets like that. But yeah, there isnt anything else that you are able to do.

would like to add an amendment to the previous tactic i posted (fleet catching) due to the new ship stats. Well as stated at the top the best kinds of fleet catch are ones where ziks steal the enemy ships. With the new stats zik have some ships (their DE) that actually have a lower eta than the ships they steal, this allows fleet catchs that can not be dodged (the JGP and recall counter) due to the ships not even needed to be ordered to launch until the enemy ships are on their way home. this means that this is only counterable buy massed defence.

Now for a new tactic i have been useing recently when i have been playing Zik.

Tactic: Liquid Assets
Description: Due to zik ships stealing other classes of ships this often leads to you fleet compositon getting less concentrated over time. So I have taken to saveing up a bit of resources instead of spending them all, I do still grow my fleets i just don't spend all my resources. This means that when i am under attack i can then spend the built up resources on the type of ship that fires at the class attacking me and makeing my fleet more concentrated again. This tactic has several advantages firstly an attacker may recall instantly if they planet scan and see you resources fall massively. The next main advantage is that some people sometime neglect/forget to planet scan their targets, this can lead to them landing when they thnink they have the advantage when you really have it. This is very good for ziks later in the round as it becomes harder to steal later in the round but useing this tactic one neglegent attacker can lead to a nice steal for you (obviously calc this either on a battle calc or in your head do not throw away your ships on an assumption). This tactic can also be used by other races but i find it is most effective for ziks. ummm i am sure there is something i have forgoten but that sort of thing happens when you only get 9 and a half hours sleep in the past 3 days, plz if you work out what i have missed add it.

Description: Don't fall asleep. If you must fall asleep generally speakin the best time of day to sleep (UK time) is in the afternoon (when you get home from school or work (check Pa first of course)).This is a very effective tactic and means that you can keep your precious ships safe.

Counter: Slip sleeping pills into you opponets drink or steal their coffee supplys.

Theoretically they're not supposed to get roids if they don't bring pods, but if they bring even one pod that goes unblocked, they do get more than that one pod could cap. I don't recall if this covers the full share or not.

From what I have seen if 2 attackers land at the same time even if pods were not brought by one of the attackers the full cap of pods is not taken even if the player that brough pods had more than enough to get a full cap.

__________________
Matthew 24:9 (New International Version) "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me."Who the hell gave you posrep you christian fundamentalist?god is bollox, mkay and you are not discussing itYou're not the voice of Christianity di**head.
CT R22-20, [1up] R18-16, TGV R15, The Illuminati - [NoS] - R14-13

would like to add an amendment to the previous tactic i posted (fleet catching) due to the new ship stats. Well as stated at the top the best kinds of fleet catch are ones where ziks steal the enemy ships. With the new stats zik have some ships (their DE) that actually have a lower eta than the ships they steal, this allows fleet catchs that can not be dodged (the JGP and recall counter) due to the ships not even needed to be ordered to launch until the enemy ships are on their way home. this means that this is only counterable buy massed defence.

While this is a good point, the counter as it stands still works some of the time, I'll make a note in the tactic, but I won't make a major change.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cowmando

Liquid Assets

Good addition, I'm not particularly fond of the name you've chosen, I'd prefer calling it 'Planet Defense Fund' or 'Reserve Fleet' or maybe 'On Demand Defense.' Anyone else got any other suggestions? If not I'll add it as is (with some editorial comments).

ok this is a bit of a weird tactic but it worked for me before. Its similar to liquid assets but if you have res but dont want to spend it on the ships needed to def the inc just spend it on the ships you want to build instead, preferably so they are produced at the same tick the inc lands or possibly the tick after the inc lands if it gets targetted by the inc (the attacker doesnt know your engineering priorites, and hence your production time, do they?). then once you have done this message them in game telling them you have just ordered x amount of whatever ships def the inc and hopefully they recall. told ya it was a bit of a weird tactic :P

So you mean that when you spend your resources, you give the enemy the bait, so he thinks you are producing ships that kill him, though, you only produced what you need. Heh, I think it could be called a tactic :P

Theoretically they're not supposed to get roids if they don't bring pods, but if they bring even one pod that goes unblocked, they do get more than that one pod could cap. I don't recall if this covers the full share or not.

Just clarifying this for the record. If you attack with another person on a planet with 1000 roids, and between the two of you have enough to capture 25%, then the roids are split up according to fleet values. Even if one guy sends 50 Levi's and the other sends a single Mosquito and 3800 Spiders (roughly same value as 50 Levis), and lands, if his single mosquito is intact for the capture, then he is still able to participate and gain 12.5% of the roids. Thus between the two of them they have similiar values, and even though one has only sent a single pod, they would still share the capture evenly because of their fleet values. So 125 roids each.

Same goes for if you attack with three people, only instead of 125 roids you are looking at 83 roids each.

ok this is a bit of a weird tactic but it worked for me before. Its similar to liquid assets but if you have res but dont want to spend it on the ships needed to def the inc just spend it on the ships you want to build instead, preferably so they are produced at the same tick the inc lands or possibly the tick after the inc lands if it gets targetted by the inc (the attacker doesnt know your engineering priorites, and hence your production time, do they?). then once you have done this message them in game telling them you have just ordered x amount of whatever ships def the inc and hopefully they recall. told ya it was a bit of a weird tactic :P

I would consider this tactic what is commonly called a 'bluff' IE appearing to do something you are not, this is definitely an acceptable post for this thread, but before I add it I would like to ask if anyone else has any other bluffs they used, because I'd like to create this as a seperate category seperate from the other tactics, as it involves a key element that is outside of fleet movement/creation (the PA mail). This suggestion may in fact warent it's own thread, as we could probably come up with a whole list of bluff tactics that work using PA messages. Also an appropriate name would be useful as well, perhaps "Resource bluff."

Along the lines of this last tactic there is another tactic/bug exploitation that [MC]Hellfire suggested to me on IRC:
"i got a suggestion for the resources one.
you dont need to spend, just spend right after it ticks. and cancel just before it ticks again. that way your value will be lowered and people will think you spend your resources, while in fact you havent done a thing It wont show as you keep them in production, so unless they scan you between x:00:00 - x:01:00 they wont know having a past in wich you actually did spend a load of resources works in these scenario's offcos"

So essentially what this tactic allows you to do is to spend your resources before your value is calculated for a given tick, this causes your value to drop significantly (which your attacker can see) but allows you to cancel the actual production without having to pay the penalty for having ships in production for a tick. This coupled with a bluff PA mail has a lot of weight.

I remember attacking a member of LCH (3 fleeting him), but he wasn't yet tagged. He told his HC and I was being fleet catched with 3 waves, I managed to cover the first 2 with the help of my gal mates. But the third one was too much to cover, I contacted him on IRC, and a simple apology did wonders